Design Your Own Rocket

A lot of the software packages I've covered in recent articles have
been focused strictly on doing computations on your machine, separate
from the real world. So in this article, I explore how to use your computer to
design something you can build and use in the real world: your
own model rocket. Let's take a look at the OpenRocket utility
and see how it can help you design your own rockets. OpenRocket even can run
simulations on your designs to show how they should behave in flight.

Most
distributions should include a package for OpenRocket. For example, in
Ubuntu, you would install it with apt-get install
openrocket. It is
actually a Java program, so you always can download the jar file directly
from the Web site. To run it,
you need to have a reasonably up-to-date Java VM installed as well.

When you first start it up, you are presented with an empty screen, ready to
begin designing your first rocket. A project window pops up, allowing you
to enter details like the design name, your name and design notes. You can
build your rocket from a series of components. You probably will want
to start with the nose cone by clicking on it from the "Add new
component"
window. It then will appear in the bottom section, beginning your
design.

You will notice that OpenRocket already begins to make calculations
based on your design. You will see a small blue circle that denotes the
center of gravity of your rocket. The center of gravity is the point
through which all of the mass acts. There also is a small red dot that
marks the center of pressure. This is the point through which all of the
atmospheric forces act. OpenRocket calculates these values as you make
changes to your design.

You can edit almost all of the parameters for each component.
There are two ways to edit these component parameters. You
can double-click on the component of interest in the design window to
access the edit window. There also is a list of the component layers in the
top half. You can highlight the component of interest here and then click
on the Edit button.

What you can change will depend on which component
you are trying to edit. The first component to design probably is the nose
cone. You can select what kind of profile your nose cone should have,
such as conical or ellipsoid. You can set the length and base diameter,
as well as the wall thickness. But, OpenRocket goes even further. You
can select the kind of material from which your nose cone should be made. The
different types of materials have different densities, which changes the
weight of your component.

Several different material presets are available,
but you also can go ahead and define your own custom material type. This
custom material either can be used just for one design, or you can add it
permanently to your materials database if it is something you will
be using over and over again. You even can set the type of finish
your rocket will have. This finish can be different for each component,
or you can apply a common finish to your entire rocket.

When first starting OpenRocket, you get a new project dialog
where you can enter details of your rocket.

You can edit many details of the different components by double-clicking
the component of interest.

The rocket engine database has lots of information on many different
brands.

The next part of your rocket is the actual body tube. If your rocket
is going to have a single stage, you will need only a single body
tube. For multiple stages, you will need a separate body tube for
each stage. Opening the edit window for the body tube allows you to
change the tube length, diameter and wall thickness. You also can
change the material from which the body tube is made.

Because body
tubes usually contain a rocket motor, you can set the motor that
you want to use as well. To do so, open the edit window and
click on the motor tab. You can click the Select Motor button and
choose from a large selection of commercially available motors. This list
of motors includes technical information, such as the thrust curve and
the run times, as well as physical characteristics like the length,
diameter and weight.

As with the other sections of the application, you
can define your own custom entries. This means even full-on DIY
model-rocket enthusiasts who build their own motors can use OpenRocket
to design their rockets.

The component list includes other items like
parachutes, shock cords, connectors and blocks, so you can
design your rocket as a complete model.

The final stage is to add tail
fins to your rocket. As with the other components, there are well designed
presets available that will satisfy most design needs. You can edit some
parameters to customize the fins to some degree. If that's not enough,
there is a freehand option where you can design your fins from scratch.

OpenRocket is not only a design program. You also can take your model
rocket and run an analysis on it to see how it will behave in flight. The
analysis section looks at individual components and shows how they
affect the stability, drag and roll characteristics of your rocket. You
can set parameters like wind direction, angle of attack and speed, and
calculate how it will behave in flight.
This is great functionality, but
OpenRocket goes even further. It can take your original design and try to
optimize it for the best flight characteristics. You can optimize based
on altitude, velocity or some other combination of characteristics.

Joey Bernard has a background in both physics and computer science. This serves him well in his day job as a computational research consultant at the University of New Brunswick. He also teaches computational physics and parallel programming.

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